And so I flew from Tampere (after a visit to a friend to have lunch) to the former US military airport of Frankfurt Hahn. It was lovely to have someone waiting for me when I arrived: Eva took me out to the apple-wine places of Frankfurt – or in fact Schönhausen – and finally to her home/parents near Aschaffenburg. Was lovely to meet some of the Berlin gang (who mainly are from around Frankfurt).

The next day I flew over to another US base: Bologna Forli – which serves more Rimini than Bologna. The weather there as in Germany was cold and rainy – quite a shock after Finland. Decided to head for Bologna, where the weather indeed was much better. I was worried as I didn’t have a booking, so I asked my dad to book one online since he happened to be online – we could figure it all out with few SMSs. Thanks dad! The hotel was in the historical centre so I found there without a map and could walk around the city for the evening and the morning I had to spend there.

The thing I was most impressed about in Bologna was a library-bookshop in the municipal building which was open until late. I went and browsed the guidebooks and found myself the perfect Italian language book. How to learn to speak in a few days without any need to consult other languages. Italian seemed so easy – on the basis of my Spanish and French I understood most of what was going on, at least half of the language, but felt at the same time handicapped to speak. Later I figured that yes indeed, I do understand half, but only the half of what’s going on. But if one compares this to Hungarian and its obscure words…

Sunday, then I was the time to make it to Cortona, which I did, arriving at the same time as some of the few people I knew I would know at the summer school. How lovely. Cortona is an old (dates to Etruscan time) town on a steep hill, which over-looks a largfe valley. As the whole of Tuscany, it seems, it is populated by tourists in August. Many of them were British, brought over to a Under Tuscan Sun classical music festival. The colleagues who had been in the previous summer schools told us, the newcomers, that the city was really different to what it used to be even three years ago.

Some of this was really positive, such as the swimming pool on the top of the hill. It was a 20-minute walk from the old monastery we stayed in to climb up the hill for a swim and we did it some of the times – the times when we had already done the reading, usually in the hammocks put up between the trees in the garden of the hotel. The views we saw from the lecture room were only comparable to one experience I had in the past – those from the Villa Lante, the Finnish Cultural Institute on the Giannicopolo Hill in Rome. Simply breathtaking.

Solidarity was a theme we explored from many different directions. One to mention here was the book by a British-born historian Tony Judt: Postwar. In the league of books on Europe, it is unique, phenomenal in terms of language, readability and the balance between the East and West. What was fascinating was to hear people from the East and West of Europe – plus some north Americans and an Argentinian discuss about the European welfare state and englargement processes. And later in the evening over a glass of wine or the dinner about their own work – or life in general.
But all good things were to come to an end. On Saturday, a couple of us stayed overnight at a friend and collegue of us in Florence. It was my first time, but I thought the couple of hours in the city were enough for the attempt to digest the rich and busy city. The next day two of us headed off to Bologna – which I find more normal as it was not flocked by neither tourists nor students – nor indeed locals as everyone still seemed to be on holiday. The hotel we found was great, beautiful and affordable – would recommend Il Guercino to anyone!

Yesterday, Monday, I sent off Postwar – the two-kilo book to Finland, and headed in the afternoon for Venice for the evening. I didn’t see much, but enough to enjoy it and want to go back one day. I suppose one’s reaction to Venice largely depends on the preconceptions. I had heard a lot of negative things about it, but finally: I was clever enough to travel on the public transport in the canals, sit around on some non-commercial surroundings and go and have a meal with wine and water for under 9 euros in a place which was filling with locals and others coming to see football.

I had to give up football and the beautiful Venice and catch my train instead. I had booked a 3-bed compartment since I thought the ticket was so decent price – and was lucky to have it all for myself. I got off the train on the Hungarian border and took a local train to Pécs. In total under 14 hours. I met a friend of mine at the train station – it’s all as when we met last in the end of April. She’s now planning her teaching, I’m checking my mails and reading for the weekend’s seminar in Budapest – then we will catch up and have some food, szalon barna (local dark beer, and my favourite in Hungary) and perhaps see a film. Until next time (which is hopefully sooner than my previous post – sorry about the silence)!